Principal Engineer - AI Platform & Operations

Serko; Seattle (WA); Remote; USD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical benefits

Discretionary incentive plan

Learning & development platform

Flexible work policy

Job summary

Serko is seeking a Principal Engineer to own the technical vision for our AI Platform & Operations. This remote role can be based in Washington or California, requiring leadership across ML infrastructure, deployment benchmarks, and scalable AI model services.

You will mentor senior engineers, drive architecture reviews, and shape the next generation of cloud services and ML frameworks to support a global business travel tech platform.

Qualifications

• 12+ years engineering experience, with at least 4 years at Principal or Distinguished level.
• Expert-level knowledge of model serving and ML platforms.
• Strong Kubernetes and cloud ecosystem experience (AWS/GCP/Azure)

Responsibilities

• Architect the long-term technical roadmap for our AI platform including model serving & feature stores.
• Set engineering benchmarks for deployment, versioning, A/B testing, and automated rollbacks.
• Lead GPU/compute optimization and manage LLM inference at scale (quantization, batching, latency).
• Design advanced monitoring and alerting for AI workloads in production.
• Mentor senior engineers, lead architecture reviews, evaluate cloud services & ML frameworks.

Skills

ML infrastructure

Kubernetes

Python

Cloud platforms

LLM inference

System architecture

Tools

MLflow

Weights & Biases

Kubeflow

Docker

Helm

Job description

Serko is a cutting-edge tech platform in global business travel & expense technology. When you join Serko, you become part of a team of passionate travellers and technologists bringing people together, using the world's leading business travel marketplace. We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer, and we embrace the richness of diversity, showing up authentically to create a positive impact. There's an exciting road ahead of us, where travel needs real, impactful change.

With offices in New Zealand, Australia, North America, and China, we are thrilled to be expanding our global footprint, landing our new hub in Bengaluru, India. With a rapid growth plan in place, we're hiring people from different backgrounds, experiences, abilities, and perspectives to help us build a world-class team and product. We are looking for a Principal Engineer to serve as the technical expert for our AI Platform & Operations. This isn't just a role about maintaining infrastructure; it's about owning the technical vision for the foundational systems that will power every AI product team across the company. Remote Role - can be based in either Washington or California State.

Requirements

By building robust, self-serve internal developer platforms, you'll enable our engineers to deploy, monitor, and scale AI models with unprecedented efficiency and safety. Your work ensures that our "Agentic" future is reliable, cost-effective, and cutting-edge.

What You'll Be Doing

• Architect the Future: Define the long-term technical roadmap for our AI platform, covering everything from model serving and feature stores to experiment tracking and CI/CD for ML
• Set the Gold Standard: Establish engineering benchmarks for deployment, versioning, A/B testing, and automated rollbacks
• Optimize & Scale: Lead strategies for GPU/compute efficiency and cost optimization while managing the complexities of LLM inference (quantization, batching, and latency) at scale
• Enhance Observability: Design sophisticated monitoring and alerting systems specifically tailored for AI workloads in production
• Champion Reliability: Drive platform stability and partner with application teams to ensure our infrastructure meets evolving product needs
• Technical Leadership: Mentor Senior engineers, lead architecture reviews, and evaluate the next generation of cloud services and ML frameworks

What You'll Bring

We are looking for a heavy-hitter in the ML infrastructure space who thrives on solving complex, distributed systems problems.

• Senior Expertise: 12+ years of engineering experience, with at least 4 years at a Principal or Distinguished level
• ML Infrastructure Mastery: Expert-level knowledge of model serving (e.g., Triton, vLLM, Ray Serve) and deep experience with Kubernetes and cloud ecosystems (AWS/GCP/Azure)
• The MLOps Toolkit: Proven experience with tools like MLflow, Weights & Biases, or Kubeflow
• Coding & Systems: High proficiency in Python and a "systems-thinking" approach to Docker, Helm, and containerization
• AI Specialization: Hands-on experience operating LLM inference at scale and a deep understanding of the trade-offs between throughput and latency
• Platform Mindset: A track record of building internal platforms that treat other engineers as the primary customer, drastically improving engineering velocity

Benefits

At Serko, we aim to create a place where people can come and do their best work. This means you'll be operating in an environment with great tools and support to enable you to perform at the highest level of your abilities, producing high-quality and delivering innovative and efficient results. Our people are fully engaged, continuously improving, and encouraged to make an impact.

Some of the benefits of working at Serko are:

• A competitive base pay
• Medical Benefits
• Discretionary incentive plan based on individual and company performance
• Focus on development: Access to a learning & development platform and opportunity for you to own your career pathways
• Flexible work policy